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JACKROAD
Artist Blog

Welcome.

Jack Balas is an artist originally based in Chicago and Los Angeles, who divides his time between painting, drawing and photography, cross-referenced at times with writing and other media . A recipient in 1995 of an Individual Fellowship in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts, he is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York), the Denver Art Museum, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.  A portfolio of his paintings "Today I Drove Along the Rio Grande" was published in issue #120 of The Paris Review (New York). His 2008 museum solo project "We'll Be Seeing You" appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. In 2014-2016 and in 2022-2023 he exhibited work in group shows sponsored by the US State Department's Art in Embassies Program, at the United States Embassies in Vienna, Austria, and Stockholm, Sweden. In 2017 his large solo show "Maine And Again" appeared at the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor, Maine, and in 2019 his solo "Against the Grain: Men, Maps and Other Incorrections" was featured at the Gallery of Art at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

This website includes a broad spectrum of the artwork divided into individual media in the above navigation bar. You can read an artist statement and get an overview of the work by taking a TOUR.  The newest painting and photo work is in the black area below, while a few other highlights from the past are in the adjacent gray.

 

 

CURRENT SHOWS
& NEWS

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APPEARING IN THE
WINTER 2024
PHYSIQUE PICTORIAL from the
BOB MIZER FOUNDATION

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SOLO SHOW:

JACK BALAS: SOME DAYS (I JUST WANT TO PAINT)
JANUARY 11- MARCH, 2024

JACK BALAS
CLAMP
247 WEST 29TH ST
NEW YORK, NY 10001

 

READING IN THE GALLERY WITH
SPECIAL GUEST DUANE MICHALS
SATURDAY JANUARY 13, at 4pm

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SOLO SHOW:
OCTOBER 27-- DECEMBER 3, 2023
JACK BALAS AND WES HEMPEL
FRONT RANGE, BACK TO BACK

WILLIAM HAVU GALLERY
1040 Cherokee St.
Denver, CO 80204

 

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AD_MISSION
(Those ads in ArtForum)
JackRoad Blog Entry

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 "The surfaces of your wry, ruminative paintings hold light wonderfully, and your references to Wyeth and Homer give a poignant new perspective on Americana.
I've enjoyed reading...the riffs and reinterpretations of gallery press materials and museum wall labels. In a way, they conflate exhibitions of the last 20 years with earnest, personal distractions and mundanities, which is what looking at art is all about."

James Rondeau
President and Director,
Art Institute of Chiacgo
(Feb, 2022)
 

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2022 -- 2024
United States Embassy
Vienna, Austria
and
United States Embassy
Stockholm, Sweden

US Department of State
Art in Embassies Program

 

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AND SO DID PLEASURE TAKE THE
HAND OF SORROW, AND THEY
WANDERED THROUGH THE LAND OF JOY:
A LEGACY OF MARSDEN HARTLEY
(Group exhibition)


October 28, 2022--March 18, 2023

Bates Museum of Art
Bates College
Lewiston, Maine

 

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SPEAKEASY ­
A proposal to support artists
from auctions

 

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SOLO SHOW:
NOVEMBER, 2020--JANUARY, 2021

JACK BALAS: COMMON GROUND:
PAINTINGS FOR AMERICA

WILLIAM HAVU GALLERY
1040 Cherokee St.
Denver, CO 80204


Reviewed in The Denver Post
by Ray Mark Rinaldi

 

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SOLO SHOW:
JANUARY 9--FEBRUARY 29, 2020

JACK BALAS: CHECKERED PASSED
CLAMP ART
247 WEST 29TH ST
NEW YORK, NY 10001

 

REVIEWED IN WALL STREET INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

 

SEE EXHIBITION
INSTALLATION PHOTOS

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SOLO SHOW:
AUGUST 19 --OCTOBER 5, 2019

JACK BALAS: AGAINST THE GRAIN:
MEN, MAPS AND OTHER INCORRECTIONS

Gallery of Art
University of Northern Iowa,


CATALOG AVAILABLE:

Catalog for the solo exhibition
available at BLURB.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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:
SOLO SHOW:

JACK BALAS: MAINE AND AGAIN
University of Maine Museum of Art
Bangor, Maine
September 15--December 22, 2017

EXHIBITION PHOTOGRAPHS



Catalog available from Blurb

 

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RADIO INTERVIEW ON
THE 2015 SOLO SHOW:
"ART BEAT" with
KATHRYN DAVIS
KVSF 101.5 FM
October 29, 2015
PODCAST LINK HERE

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GUY'D BOOK
An introduction to the
Paintings, Drawings, Photo
and Writing.
160 pages
availabl;e at BLURB.com

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YouTube Interview from
solo show in Barcelona, 2009

 

 

 

New Essay on JACKROAD:


WHERE'S THE BEEF?
A LOOK FOR (AND LACK OF)
THE MALE EROTIC IMAGE
IN CONTEMPORARY ART.
IS THE TERM "HOMO-EROTIC"
PEJORATIVE?

 



"An important issue I hadn't thought much about."
--Lucy Lippard, Independent Critic & Curator

"I read with great interest."
-- Raphael Rubinstein, Contributing Editor, Art In America

"You are a good writer."
--William Morrow, Curator, Denver Art Museum

"I was happy to pass it on to Okwui Enwezor,
who took an intense look at it."
--Dr. Sonja Teine, Assistant to Director Okwui Enwezor, Haus der Kunst, Munich

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From the archive:

LOGAN LECTURE
(Artist Talk)
Sharp Auditorium
Denver Art Museum
Denver, CO

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 The BROOKLYN MUSEUM,
New York City,
has recently acquired two pieces
from the MUSE / MUSEUM series
for its permanent collection.

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Current Paintings:  2022 -- 2024

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QUICK TOUR: MULTI-YEAR SURVEY
OF PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS

 

 
       
 

 

 

 

TATTOO DETOUR 17: FROM HERE TO ETERNITY
Drawings From Honolulu 2024

 
       

 


MUSE / MUSEUM SERIES
All years 2006 - 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

THE 2020 COMPANY SERIES
A Response to the Global Covid-19 Pandemic

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

THE DRAWING ROOM

 

 

 

       

 

  

 


JackRoad: Artist Blog

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New Photo Constructions

 

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www.JackBalas.com: BACK TO BACK OF THE YARDS: Collage from Southside Chicag 

 

CATALOG ESSAY for "DECADES OF INFLUENCE" and "EXTENDED REMIX"
Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver

"Artist and catalogue contributor Jack Balas captures the boom mood in his poetic essay about being a laborer for hire. His description of driving across the country as an art shipper in the 80's expresses the increasing vulnerability of the artist through a portrait of the landscape. Looking in the rearview mirror suggests that the 90's represented the point of no return for the contemporary art world."

Cydney Payton, Executive Director /
Chief Curator, MoCA Denver.

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"WE'LL BE SEEING YOU" :
PROJECT AND SOLO EXHIBITION
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, DENVER

(Summer, 2008)
   
     

highlights FROM THE ARCHIVE:

All contents of this site
© 2002--2024 by Jack Balas
.

 

 

 

QUICK TOUR:
MULTI-YEAR SURVEY OF
PAINTINGS & DRAWINGS

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  STUD DUST
A series of photographs
A.K.A. "Studio Men"

 

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THE OBERDICK CHAISE
and other sculpture

 

 

NOW ON THE SITE:

1980's - 1990's PAINTINGS

LANDSCAPE
TEXT
COLLAGE
OTHER COOL STUFF